Robert Benson introduces himself as “Al” Benson in this public access TV show in which he interviews Bob Flanders about a history book he co-authored.

Robert Benson is a frequent contributor to the Providence Journal op-ed pages. Almost every time he contributes, he writes about an anti-organized labor economic topic (see here, here, here, here and here among others).

Sometimes when he writes he thinks public sector unions should be banned, as he did here: “Is it any wonder that Rhode Islanders are fed up with these arrogant, selfish and economically ignorant union bosses? The response of these so-called union leaders to reasonable actions like pension reform is justification for banning government unions altogether.”

And other times, like this morning, he’s more reserved: “We don’t need to outlaw public sector unions, but our elected officials must be able to balance the union demands with the taxpayer’s ability to pay for these demands.”

Since Ed Achorn has taken the helm of the paper of record’s op/ed section, every time he writes, the Providence Journal makes a practice to point out that he is a member of Common Cause and Operation Clean Government, even though neither of these organizations take a stand on – or have anything to do with – economic policy and/or the labor movement, the subjects Benson takes on in his essays.

This fits an emerging pattern on the ProJo op/ed page of parsing anti-left rants as being more non-partisan than they actually are.

But forget (if you can!) for a moment the Providence Journal’s new style of painting an overly rosy picture of those who target the left. I’m just as curious as to why Robert Benson (who sometimes goes by Al Benson, by the way) is allowed to spew misinformation – over and over again, mind you, as he makes this claim in more than one of his ProJo pieces – about Rhode Island having the most expensive fire fighters in the nation.

Here’s what he wrote this morning (emphasis mine): In fact, Rhode Island’s firefighting costs are the highest or second highest in the country, according to the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (see “How R.I. Compares,” at http://www.ripec.org).

Here’s what the RIPEC report says (again emphasis mine): “Rhode Island’s fire safety expenditures of $5.06 per $1,000 in 2000 and $6. 50 per $1,000 of personal income in FY 2011, ranked the state 2nd in the country and first in the region.” And, elsewhere in the report: “Per capita FY 2000 fire safety expenditures in Rhode Island of $153 were 80.6 percent higher than the national average and highest in the country. In FY 2011, Rhode Island’s per capita fire safety spending was $280, the second highest in the country and 104.6 percent higher than the national average of $137.”

So, as a point of fact, RIPEC does not rank Rhode Island as the “highest or second highest in the country.” It ranks Rhode Island as the “second highest in the country.”

Those who doubt these numbers seem to have these questions (cribbed directly from actual comments):

1) EMS services are included for Rhode Island but not the other states. By including EMS, you couldn’t even compare Providence to Worcester- two very similar sized cities, but Worcester’s EMS is provided by UMass Hospital, and Providence’s by the Fire Department.

2) The cost represents the total cost of fire protection in RI, meaning sprinkler systems, alarms and other additions, not just the actual fire department budgets.

3) Belief that pension costs are included in the RI costs but not in those for other states.

All the RIPEC report says about it’s methodology is:

Fire Protection comprises expenditures for the prevention, avoidance and suppression of fires and for the provision of ambulance, medical, rescue or auxiliary services when provided by fire protection agencies.To be clear, I’d like more particulars myself.

In short, the Providence Journal op/ed page is overstating/misrepresenting anti-fire fighter information that even Anchor Rising contributors have become skeptical of, four years ago.

Why? How often does this happen? Are their other errors that have gone unnoticed and uncorrected? Has this been an increasing pattern since the wildly anti-union Ed Achorn took over the editorial page control?

I don’t know but if I were John Marion, executive director of Common Cause RI, I might ask Robert Benson to not make such claims under the name “Common Cause.”